Office 2010 Technical Preview Leaked

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft was planning on giving out the Office 2010 Technical Preview to select testers in July on an invite-only basis. Office 2010 will be available in 32-bit and 64-bit versions, and both flavors have been leaked to torrent sites and the like. Multiple screenshots of each application are available. '... some applications have changed a lot more than others. The ribbon seems to be on every application now, which is great for consistency's sake. ... The biggest change, in my opinion, is that the no file/orb menu is no longer a menu. When you click the colored office button, you get a screen that is shown in the second screenshot for each application.'"

Comments

Not the biggest fan

[ironicsky]

I've gotten used to the ribbon by force, but Im still not the biggest fan. I find the location of alot of commands to be counter intuitive. For example, no Page Setup in the print option from the Office Orb item. Office 2007 introduced alot of good features such as saving as a PDF but I wish they would give users the option of collapsing the ribbon back in to proper menu's for consistency with every other app not made by Microsoft. Its great they are trying something different but seem to have little buy in from software vendors, otherwise all apps would be ribbons instead of menus

Re:Not the biggest fan

[DarkOx]

My problem with the ribbon is that its in the way. Most of us are working most of the time on documents we intend to print portrait on 8x11 paper when we use Office software. The trend as of late is to monitors that are 16x9 or 16x10 aspect. That is not conducive for portrait work in the first place, its a real PITA when you start sucking up the remaining vertical space for your 200px think ribbon.

Ribbon might have been a good idea if it was done vertical up the side rather then along the top.

Re:Not the biggest fan

[Blakey Rat]

The ribbon takes less space vertically than the default toolbars in Office 2003. Plus it can be minimized, in which case it takes the same space as Office 2003 with zero toolbars.

I keep seeing this complaint, and it just goes to show that when people don't like something, they'll pull reasons for it out of thin air. Did it ever occur to you to actually *measure* whether the ribbon was bigger or smaller than the last version? Or did you just need a knee-jerk reason to hate it, and this is the first one that popped into your mind?

Re:Not the biggest fan

[DarkOx]

Most of the default tool bars in 2k3 can be pulled off and moved to the side. You cannot do that with the ribbon. You also don't need to display the tool bars at all they can be turned off leaving only the menu.

Re:Not the biggest fan

[Anonymous Coward]

I have my toolbars on the side. So my "Office 2003 with toolbars" takes up less vertical space than the ribbon minimized. And you *can't* move the ribbon the side, or even shrink it by removing buttons you don't need. You don't need a knee-jerk reason to hate the ribbon, because pretty much anything you can say about it is a valid criticism for anyone who's used a word processor before.

Re:Not the biggest fan

[Anonymous Coward]

I keep seeing this complaint, and it just goes to show that when people don't like something, they'll pull reasons for it out of thin air.

That's right, when they hate it, they hate it.

Who cares what the reason is? The ribbon sucks, and enough people don't like it, that is matters.

If they had given the option of switching between modes to folks, you would no longer see this argument/issue raised at all...

Yes, I hate the friggin ribbon as well.. and I personally would remove some of the default toolbars or merge them on other lines (forcing the drop down mode) in versions before 2007.

Re:Not the biggest fan

[david_thornley]

Yes, when people don't like something, they'll pull reasons for it out of thin air. That makes the reasons invalid, not the dislikes.

You see, most people don't know why they like something, particularly something like a computer UI. There may be valid reasons why they like or dislike something like the ribbon, but they can't figure them out and certainly can't articulate them. Heck, most people don't see little details, even if they're influenced by them (something I picked up in a brief exposure to graphic design).

So, when somebody says they dislike the ribbon, they're likely to give lame reasons. You can refute them easily, but no amount of appeal from authority or polysyllabic eloquence a la William Buckley is going to make them actually like it, or stop resenting you. What you need to do is figure out what they don't like about it, and that's likely to be difficult, and deal with it at that level.

I read somewhere that one big problem the Apple usability people had was in convincing people that "I don't like it but I don't know why" is a useful response, and that they shouldn't be discouraged from complaining about something difficult because they don't want to look dumb.

One of the early lessons of GUIs

[hey!]

was for developers to stop creating their own interfaces for things like printing or saving files. Our applications would be more usable if we just used the underlying platform's routines and conventions.

I wonder whether Office turning its back on Windows UI conventions isn't a long term hedge against the desktop OS monopoly collapsing. Without a monopoly, is Windows worth the effort and cost for Microsoft?

Imagine that Windows fails. Office remains an economically important platform. Who knows? Maybe we'll have a return to the days of dedicated word processing hardware, with devices that "run office".

Re:One of the early lessons of GUIs

[shutdown -p now]

This is a good point, but I think Office has these special UI elements for psychological, not technical reasons - they differentiate Office from the rest of the OS (and horizontal competitors like OO.org) in your mind & make you think Office is somehow special/unique/valuable. The earliest example I can think of is Office 2000 (iirc), which had gradients in the title bars before the rest of the OS supported it.

Then why Wordpad and Paint in Windows 7 have ribbons, too?

In practice, Microsoft has been pushing for Ribbon as the new standard of Windows UI for some time now. There's a long-winded document describing all the dos and dont's of Ribbon (it's patented, and the license to use it only allows you to do so if you comply strictly with the UI design). Visual Studio 2008 SP1 includes Ribbon support for MFC applications. And there is a WPF Ribbon control developed by Microsoft and available for free via CodePlex.

Re:One of the early lessons of GUIs

[man_of_mr_e]

I think you're the reason Microsoft is making this the only UI. Too many people refuse to change. It's been almost 10 years that Microsoft has had a new start menu, for instance, and how many people simply don't use it?

Why should they have to maintain multiple interfaces for decades? Isn't 10 years long enough? The idea of having a way to go back to the old method is to provide a segue, so that people can slowly learn the new version, but people don't do that. They just stay on the old one and never bother to learn the new one, so long as you give them the option.

Yes, you can change. You just don't want to. And it's not that the UI is poorly designed, it's that you have never given it a chance.

Imagine if, for example, airplane manufacturers were required to keep all their gauges exactly the same as the ones in the original planes from the early 1900's, so that people wouldn't have to relearn how to use new ones. Imagine if computers were required to have a running greenbar paper output instead of monitors, just so that people didn't have to learn how to use those new fangled screens.

Change happens. It's part of using computers. Get over it.

What the f*** is happening to Office?

[rx-sp]

I know Office extremely well... Or at least I used to. With these latest releases, it's like the developers have taken magic mushrooms and decided to visit Venus. Seriously, what's going on? Why has everything changed? Who are these changes designed to help? Why did they decide to abandon the system of menus that's been in service since 1984? Just because they've been in service since 1984? That's like Ford abandoning the idea of a steering wheel because it's been used in cars since 1900. When I look at things like this, I see how far from the straight and narrow Microsoft has strayed. They are really losing all track of what's important to users. They've just lost touch completely. I'll say one thing for Bill Gates, and one thing only, but the guy could keep his organization together and produce some half-decent software. Ballmer's just a nutjob who's steering the company into the ground.

Re:What the f*** is happening to Office?

[DeadChobi]

Menus are an archaic throwback to a time where we had to press keyboard combinations to access anything. They aren't well organized for mouse users, but the fact that they're organized in an "up-down/left-right" fashion makes them perfect for people who use the keyboard to navigate. I find the ribbons make me much faster at formatting documents than the old system of menus. What's really nice is that I don't have to enter 4 sub menus just to insert a math equation or a symbol into my work. And the visual table insertion tool is really useful for those of us who don't want to think about how many, just how it should look.

Seriously, if you keep one hand on the mouse and one on the keyboard, it's much faster to create equations and documents in Word than in OpenOffice. I used to be a staunch OpenOffice supporter, but it's nice to not have to memorize keywords and keypress combos just to be halfway efficient at writing documents.

$200.00 is $200 well spent for me.

Re:What the f*** is happening to Office?

[StillAnonymous]

Because Office provided pretty much everything anybody ever wanted (and far more than they ever used) many years ago.

Companies hit this point and it's an "oh, shit" moment because now they have to come up with something other than features and stability to get you to buy the next version.

Enter the eye-candy and change for the sake of change.

Re:What the f*** is happening to Office?

[SpryGuy]

Most of the same keyboard combindations work in the new Office versions with the ribbon.

This is a specious argument.

Re:What the f*** is happening to Office?

[Goldsmith]

I couldn't disagree more that the new UI is faster for equations or symbols. In the old UI, I was able to put a button wherever I wanted that would open the equation editor, or open my preferred add-on equation editor. Like buttons? Go crazy, make all your own buttons, record macros, download add-ons. Not so with new versions of Office.

Is it word or powerpoint that doesn't have a built in subscript button? That I have to worry about that, that the UI is so different between tools is very frustrating. Segregating customized buttons into ribbon purgatory and making it much more complicated to make your own buttons was a horrible, horrible decision.

I've mapped ((a)) to auto-correct to the greek symbol alpha and made other work arounds like that. I can't stop every sentence to mouse around to the symbol interface. That's not so different from old versions, but I would like to see Office move towards a more flexible UI, not a more restrictive one.

You know, we're still typing. Typing efficiently means having both hands on the keyboard. If one of my students claimed he could be "halfway efficient at writing documents" with one hand on the mouse, I would tell him to shoot for "all the way efficient" and get that other hand back on the keyboard.

Why the politeness?

[idiotnot]

"ribbon seems to be on every application now, which is great for consistency's sake."

Who cares if it's consistent; it still seriously overshadows all the other good things Microsoft has done to Office.

TFA should have read, "the ribbon still sucks, and now it's on every application."

FTFY.

Re:Why the politeness?

[Anonymous Coward]

TFA should have read, "the ribbon still sucks, and now it's on every application."

FTFY.

And that should have been "the ribbon still sucks IMO".

Maybe I'm in the minority of people that actually quite likes it, but you can't get all uppity with the submitter just because they expressed a subjective opinion. It's not like you're now required to like it because it's been said on Slashdot, and you're definitely not required to buy a copy of this once it's released.

Unless you think that your opinion is the only one that matters here maybe you should take a leaf out of the submitters book in terms of politeness. If you don't like the feature, vote with your wallet.

Re:Let me be the first to say:

[Jamie's Nightmare]

And you get what you pay for. Like bugs guaranteed to put you at risk for losing saved data, discovered in beta, but released anyway without being fixed. The mother fuckers responsible should have lost their job... oh wait, it's open source. Who cares. If you value your time and work you're probably better off buying Sun's Star Office. For typing notes to grandma, OO is great.

Re:Let me be the first to say:

[duiu]

Everything I need is in OpenOffice, and at a WAY better price!

That may be the case for you, but the fact is there is nothing along the lines of Microsoft Vizio in OpenOffice, and the OpenOffice Calc is simply not up to par with Microsoft Excel. The word processing is great in OpenOffice, but for some things OpenOffice just doesn't cut it. Go ahead, flame me, mod me down. But I'm sticking with Microsoft Office. I probably won't update to 2010 anytime soon (I just updated to 2007 when I had a chance to pay only $20 for it). Microsoft is pain, .docx is a dick move, but the fact remains that overall, for the advanced user, M$ Office is better. And yes, I do have an Ubuntu computer as well as a Windows computer and I have used OpenOffice and I am not a fanboy of Microsoft.

Why does everyone hate Ribbon? It's great!

[WarwickRyan]

I really can't understand the hate for Ribbon on slashdot. It all seems to be centered on "but they changed it".

Slashdot is an technology community: we're the people who're either instigating change, or are always putting ourselves on the bleeding edge. We accept the fact that we often have to relearn things, because we then gain the advantages of progress.

Ribbon's a really good example. Once you're used to it, you'll find it so much easier to use than the old system that you'll never want to go back.

For example, take Excel 2007. One of the most common functions in Excel is creation of pretty reports using tables and charts. With Ribbon it's so much easier to create and use tables. The interface is fantastic. Far superiour to the old menuing system. The way that they've build the seperation of symantics and style, an made is easy to use is just fantastic. I mean, you've got an cell in an spreadsheet which contains faulty data.

Like most slashdotters I was suspicious at first. You can't help but be after hearing such bad press. However within a day of actually using it, the benefits were clear.

So, if you've not spent much time with Ribbon, do yourself an favour and spend a day playing with it in Excel or Word. You'll learn to love it, and then you'll never want to go back to the 'old' way.

Re:Let me be the first to say:

[AndGodSed]

Read my post again - everything I need is in OO. Everything you need is not.

Welcome to the world of free software - you get to choose.

And why should you be modded down or flamed? You make valid points - for some things OO doesn't cut it, that is true, but for everything I (and everybody I know who uses it) need OO cuts it very well.

Btw if you do not need MSAccess you can run Office very well on that Ubuntu PC of yours if you have Crossover for Linux (I prefer it to WINE.)

Have a nice day, and here's to you plunking that Windows install very soon!

Unless you are a gamer - the "other" geek ;)

Can only improve on great from here

[nighty5]

As a power user of Word and Excel I find the inclusion of a native 64 bit version to be very welcomed indeed.

Excel 2007 added some much needed features that has truely turned it into a portable database program, whereby increasing the amount of rows from 64k to over 1 million, and from 256 columns to over 10k among other notable changes. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa730921.aspx#Office2007excelPerf_BigGridIncreasedLimitsExcel

Like most people, I was apprehensive of the ribbon UI however after about 2 weeks of solid use I fell in love with it. Microsoft really nailed it, something had to be done given the shear amount of features available in a modern editor.

I hope to see some innovation from the OOo team to give their program a fresh face although I was impressed to see some improvements in their 3.1 release.

Re:Let me be the first to say:

[ozmanjusri]

there is nothing along the lines of Microsoft Vizio in OpenOffice,

Huh?

Vizio isn't part of any of the Office suites. It's effectively a completely separate package.

Anyway, OpenOffice Draw has no equivalent in the MS collection and is arguably much more useful to the average user.

Inconsequential

[Tubal-Cain]

'... some applications have changed a lot more than others. The ribbon seems to be on every application now, which is great for consistency's sake. ... The biggest change, in my opinion, is that the no file/orb menu is no longer a menu. When you click the colored office button, you get a screen that is shown in the second screenshot for each application.'

Meh. What we really want to know is: How's the ODF compatibility?

Re:Let me be the first to say:

[blincoln]

Have you tried Dia as an alternative to Visio?

Dia is off to a great start (I use it myself), but it's got a long way to go to catch up with Visio. The interface is not as intuitive (sort of the GIMP syndrome), and it needs a library of shapes designed by good artists.

Re:Why does everyone hate Ribbon? It's great!

[lordandmaker]

In my experience, the Ribbon is a vast improvement over the 'old' UI. Sure, the 'old' UI wasn't broken, but neither were steam engines.

I was really hoping to lambast MS for getting it wrong again with change for the sake of change, but I really think they got it right this time.

Re:Why does everyone hate Ribbon? It's great!

[Gryffin]

Why do we hate the ribbon? Because it's dynamic.

Microsoft sees that as a plus: customize the UI based on what Office thinks the user is trying to do. Nice, in theory. But it depends on a level of application telepathy that doens't exist. (Yet?)

Users see it as a minus: the commands they want aren't always where they expect to find them, so they end up wasting productive time trying to find them. More than a little frustrating when you have a deadline bearing down on you.

If Office did a better job of reading the user's mind, the Ribbon would rock. But since that's not likely to happen, Microsoft should go back to UI Design 101: a good UI is a consistent UI.

Don't suprise users by capriciously moving tools, or they'll hate you forever. Which is pretty much where 90% of Office '07 are right now.

Re:Let me be the first to say:

[rackserverdeals]

He could have. But I don't know of many people who type into their Office application of choice rather than just their browser or a lightweight pad when posting.

Ugh. That just reminded me of all the times I'd open up a word document that was sent as an email attachment that just said something like "Project meeting today at 2:00."

Re:Why does everyone hate Ribbon? It's great!

[BitZtream]

Considering I'm not really a heavy Excel user, but I do occasionally create tables and charts.

In my experience, it could not be 'much easier' with the Ribbon as it wasn't hard before the ribbon.

Having used both I can confirm that it really isn't 'Much Easier' to do it via the ribbon because it really wasn't hard and only took one more click in the old version. (2003)

If you think this new interface is 'far superiour' you have become a fanboy. Its not really a lot different, they mostly just jumbled up the toolbar by craming the menu and the toolbar together.

The reason most of slashdot's problem with it is 'because they changed it' is because thats really all they did. To anyone who knew how to use the products before hand its an annoying change that costs people time. For people who think they've made things easier, all thats happened is that you bothered to take the time to look around for a change and find features.

I've spent a couple years using 2007 now, I still hate it. From reading your post, I can say that your problem is that you never really knew how to use Office in the first place, so now that you've been hit in the face with a 2x4 of change you finally bothered to look into it more. This is not good if it happens to everyone.

People who go crazy with Office 'Features' make documents that are fucking shit to work with.

People who use many features in Word and Excel as a general rule are doing it wrong. Playing with all your fonts, sizes and such in Word is generally a sign you're doing it wrong. You use standard styles so the document can be restyled later as needed or converted to another format. Instead people like you who have suddenly found the ribbon start setting fonts, colors, sizes and other formatting options on the text itself trying to make it look like YOU think it should look, even though most of you couldn't pass highschool english if you're life depended on it.

And I'm really happy that people are finding Excel's features, thats all I needed. Documents that are basically CSV's being turned into something akin to a powerpoint with a bunch of retarded charts and effects that matter not to the data nor do they present it in a better way, they just detract from it.

Re:Why does everyone hate Ribbon? It's great!

[WarwickRyan]

It's dynamic, but only in relation to the menu which is maximised. All of the other options are there, you just need to click on them.

Compared to 'dynamic' menus in the old version (i.e. everything greyed out), it's much better. Plus it's right 80% of the time, which means greater productivity 80% of the time at the cost of an extra click 20% of the time.

When the owner says so.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have several customers whose CEO/CFO know spreadsheets. They don't have the budget to have database (even Access) people on staff to adjust the interface when they want some numbers.

It's totally the wrong way to go, but telling the guy who signs the checks that *he* has to change is not the best way to keep your job. All the recommendations, presentations and examples don't change the fact that the owner is comfortable with it.

C'est la vie.

Re:Let me be the first to say:

[rackserverdeals]

On that note, would you mind telling me what it is that Visio does?

Visio network diagrams are the currency used in many IT procurement departments.

That's an easy thing to say.

[taxman_10m]

People just don't do it. The application should take human behavior into account.

I handle support calls for a large office. Things like this happen all the time. A user will work on a new document for hours and not save it at all. They close the application they are working in and when the application asks them if they want to save the document they inadvertently hit No. The user screwed up. However, it would be nice if their error were recoverable in some way. It would be great to grab the unsaved file from some temporary location C:\usererror\backup.

Re:Let me be the first to say:

[Blakey Rat]

Software is designed for actual human beings. Actual human beings, in generally, don't hit ctrl-s every 2 minutes by instinct, therefore your software should cope with that usage scenario. Posts like yours just demonstrate why open source applications usually have horrible usability. Sure it's a small point, but those small points add-up.

Performance?

[graphicsguy]

When my workplace "upgraded" to Office 2007, performance became abysmal. Powerpoint is now awful, and Excel is slow, too. Navigating slides is now an exercise in patience. (The performance of Vista, now available on XP!) Any word on whether Office 2010 can bring back reasonable performance?

Re:Let me be the first to say:

[metlin]

For anyone who seriously uses Excel, there is no comparison. I just gave Calc a serious try, and I gave up after a week.

Secondly, there is the issue of compatibility. I cannot go about importing every single dependent spreadsheet or presentation, hoping that all the features came through. I spent some time importing and exporting between the two applications and gave up. Sooner or later, you spend more time fixing the discrepancies rather than working on the real content.

Besides, you cannot very well go to a client executive and email them a presentation made in some open source application when all they have known about is MS Office. Yes, in the ideal, imaginary world that most Slashdotters seem to be a part of, it will happen -- but it is quite impossible in the real world.

MS Office is a thing of beauty - in terms of usability, support and features. OO is great for amateur users, but for those that use Office on a daily basis.

Re:Why does everyone hate Ribbon? It's great!

[fermion]

There are two major theories on UI. On is that the user develops muscle memory can find commands by simply allowing their muscles to move the proper place. That is, if the format menu is always in the same pale, and the paragraph selection is always in the same place, then the use can quickly select these items from memory. It is the reason why keyboards are laid out basically the same, and the reason why most of us do not have to look where things are in our car, but do have to relearn the interface when we move to other cars. Of course if you have a stick, you at least knows how that works.

MS has always been a student of the other school of thought, the school that says users do no memorize locations, but read through all the menus every time they use them. Therefore, the primary issue is minimizing the movement of the mouse so that the time saved can be used in comprehending and choosing menu commands. This philosophy was the basis of using dynamic menus in applications, that is hiding commands that have not been active in a while so the user, when reading through the commands, will not waste time reading the relatively unused options. This works for some people, either because they do very limited work on the PC and therefore only need a few commands, or do not in fact memorize menus and indeed to hunt for each command, just like some users hunt for each key on a keyboard.

Ribbons are an extension and re-visioning of this philosophy. Some of this is an improvement for some users.

Re:What the f*** is happening to Office?Customize.

[Nom du Keyboard]

What's really nice is that I don't have to enter 4 sub menus just to insert a math equation or a symbol into my work. And the visual table insertion tool is really useful for those of us who don't want to think about how many, just how it should look.

Either you're a Microsoft shill, or you never took the couple minutes of effort to use the Customize... feature of many office versions to add your own commonly used feature to a toolbar. The first things I add to any pre-2007 Word tool bar, for example, are Style button, Word Count, Thesaurus, and Paste Special. Those fit my unique needs. To go through 4 sub menus for years to find an often used command rather than implement the provided solution renders anything you say questionable.

Overall I'm betting on shill.

Re:Let me be the first to say:

[Omestes]

It looses my data upon the world like Godzilla?

The term "beta" is becoming more and more worthless. We live in the age of the perpetual beta, which is generally completely open, and treated by all like an actual release, with none of the hassle of actually finishing it, or closing the large obvious bugs, at worst it is treated like a general release with relaxed liability for your own bad coding.

When you have a large distribution, and have been in beta for more than three years or so, I don't think your software should really be considered a beta anymore.

Does anyone care?

[nurb432]

So many people haven't even bothered moving to 2007 due to the lack of *useful* new features, why do we care 2010 is coming?

Same story with Vista, there was no real compelling reason to deal with it.

Re:Why does everyone hate Ribbon? It's great!

[Gryffin]

It's dynamic, but only in relation to the menu which is maximised. All of the other options are there, you just need to click on them. Compared to 'dynamic' menus in the old version (i.e. everything greyed out), it's much better. Plus it's right 80% of the time, which means greater productivity 80% of the time at the cost of an extra click 20% of the time.

First of all, I'll concede that 80% figure. If it were any lower no one would ever use the damn thing.

But, it's not "an extra click" the other 20% of the time. In my experience, and that of my cow-orkers, it's more like "roll the cursor over every icon in the current ribbon thet you don't immediately recognize and read the Tool Tip, in case the command you want is cleverly hidden in plain sight, and if you don't find it there, click through ALL the tabs at random and repeat the Tool Tip thing until you stumble upon the command wherever Microsoft decided to hide it, and when that doesn't provide joy, open Help and click on a half dozen different topics until you find the treasure." That's the part that gets really, really old, really, really fast.

Listen, on a certain level, I give Microsoft a lot of credit for trying to simplify their UI, and take it to another level. But as it always is with MS products, the problem is in the implementation. It is NO exageration to say that 90%+ of the people I now and work with who've had the misfortune to be forced to use Office 2007, hate it with a white-hot passion generally reserved for child molesters or GWB. If it works for you, then vaya con dios, muchacho. You're one of the blessed.

Re:Let me be the first to say:

[Blakey Rat]

Well, then you can move on to argument number 2, which is: "why *should* a human have to hit ctrl-S every few minutes?" That sort of automated task is *exactly* what computers are good at-- doing repetitive tasks is exactly what we built computers for in the first place!

If the computer can save 20 minutes of lost work by spending about 100 milliseconds of every minute doing an auto-save, why on God's green earth should it not do that?

So the arguments are, in order:
1) People (generally) don't do it and,
2) People shouldn't have to do it.

Re:Let me be the first to say:

[Blakey Rat]

Except Office does all those things, *and* has a much easier-to-use interface.

On your point 2: Table of Contents works if your document is laid out correctly. True, Word allows you to lay-out a document in such a way that he ToC won't work, but if you're using Outline mode, you'd break your outline too, most likely.

On your point 4: If you're using Styles the way they're intended to be used, you can easily make document-wide changes like switching from MLA to Chicago simply by changing the associated styles. Again, it's possible to set-up a document incorrectly so this won't work.